The office was entirely separate, that is, it had its own entrance door and no communication with the rest. The private quarters consisted of three rooms. The parlour, a bedroom for Steve and Nita, and, leading out of the latter, a small apartment sacred to the tiny atom of humanity which they had christened Coqueline, and whom the man, from the moment his eyes had been permitted to gaze upon her, some fifteen months earlier, regarded as the most perfect, wonderful, priceless treasure in the world. Beyond this, a simple lean-to kitchen provided all they needed for their creature comfort.
It was all characteristic of the Northern world. The walls were of lateral logs, and the roof was of a similar material, while the entire interior was lined with red pine match-boarding. It was strong, and square, and proof against the fiercest storm that ever blew off the Arctic ice, which was all sufficient in a country where endurance was man's chief concern.
Nita was seated in the rocking-chair which Steve had set ready for her beside the stove, whose warmth was welcome enough even on a summer night. She was sipping a cup of steaming coffee which he had also prepared. But there was nothing of the smiling delight in her eyes which the memory of her evening's entertainment should have left there.
The man himself was standing. He was propped against the square table under the window. He was smoking, and watching the girl wife he idolized as she silently munched the slice of layer cake which he had passed her. He was wondering if the long-expected, and long-feared moment of crisis in their brief married life had arrived. He had watched its approach for weeks. And he knew that sooner or later it must be faced. He was even inclined to force it now, for such was his way. Trouble was in her eyes, and he felt certain of its nature. Nita was not made of the stuff that could withstand the grind of the dour life of the Northland which he loved.
They had been married about three years and Nita had as yet spoken no actual word of complaint. But the complaint was there at the back of her pretty eyes. It had been there for months now. Steve had watched it grow. And its growth had been rapid enough with the passing of the first months of the delirious happiness which had been theirs, and which had culminated in the precious arrival of their little daughter Coqueline.
"Guess you must have had a real good time," Steve said, by way of breaking the prolonged silence.
For reply the girl only nodded.
The contrast between them was strongly marked. Nita was pretty—extremely pretty, and looked as out of place in this land she was native to as Steve looked surely a part of it. But her charm was of that purely physical type which gains nothing from within. Her eyes were wide, child-like, and of a deep violet. Her hair was fair and softly wavy. Her colouring had all the delicacy which suggested the laying on by an artist's brush, and which no storm or sun seemed to have power to destroy. Her slight figure possessed all those perfect contours which are completely irresistible in early youth. Furthermore these things were supported to the utmost by the party frock she was wearing, and over which she had spent weeks of precious thought and labour.
Steve was of the trail. Face and body were beaten hard with the endless struggle of it all. His rough clothing, which had no relation to the smart Inspector's uniform he was entitled to wear, bore witness to the life that claimed him. His only claim to distinction was the sanity and strength that looked out of his steady grey eyes, the firmness and decision of his clean-shaven lips, and his broad, sturdy body with its muscles of iron.
"You'll be tired, too," he went on kindly. "You'd best get to bed when you've had a warm. I'll fix the chores."
He moved from his position at the table, and, passing out into the lean-to kitchen, returned a moment later with a small saucepan which he placed on the shining top of the stove.
"Mrs. Ross seems to figure it was all sorts of a swell party," he went on. "She guesses the boys must have worried themselves to death fixing Abe's saloon so it didn't look like—Abe's saloon."
The man's smile was gently humorous. For once he had not the courage to pursue the downright course which his nature prompted. Little Coqueline was foremost in his thoughts. Then there was the memory of all the happiness his home meant to him, and he feared that which undue precipitancy might bring about.
The girl looked up from the stove. Her eyes abandoned their intense regard with seeming reluctance.
"It was all—wonderful. Just wonderful," she said in the tone of one roused from a beautiful dream.
"Abe's saloon?"
Steve's incautious satire suddenly precipitated the crisis he feared. The girl's eyes flashed a hot look of resentment. He was laughing at her. She was in no mood to be made sport of, or to have her words made sport of. She sat up with a start and leant forward in her chair in an attitude that gave force to her sharp enquiry.
"And why not?" she demanded, her violet eyes darkening under the frown of swift anger which drew her pretty brows together. "Why not Abe's saloon, or—or any other place?" She set her coffee cup on the floor with a clatter, and her hands clasped the arms of her chair as though she were about to spring to her feet. "Yes," she continued, with increasing heat, "why not Abe's saloon? It's not the place. It's not the folk, even. Those things don't matter. It's the thing itself. The whole thing. The glimpse of life when you're condemned to existence on this fierce outworld. It's the meaning of it. A dance. It doesn't sound much. Maybe it doesn't mean a thing to you but something to laugh at, or to sneer at. It's different to me, and to other folks, who—who aren't crazy for the long trail and the terrible country we're buried in. The decorations. The flags. Yes, the cheap Turkey red, and the fiddler's music—a half-breed fiddler—and the music of a pianist who spends most of his time getting sober. The folks who are all different from what we see them every day. Tough, hard-living, hard-swearing men all hidden up in their Sunday suits, and handing you ceremony as if you were some queen. Then the sense of pleasure in every heart, with all the cares and troubles of life pushed into the background—at least for a while. These things are a glimpse of life to us poor folk who spend all our years in the endless chores of an inhospitable country. You can smile, Steve. You can sneer at Abe's saloon. But I tell you you haven't a right to just because these things don't mean a thing to you. There's nothing means anything to you but your work——"
"And my wife, and my kiddie, and my—home."
The man's deep voice broke in sharply upon the light, strident tones of the angry girl. He spoke while he stirred the contents of the saucepan he had placed on the stove. But the interruption only seemed to add fuel to the girl's volcanic flood of bitter feeling. A laugh was the prompt retort he received.
"Your wife. Oh, yes, I know. You'd have her around all the time in her home, slaving at the chores that would break the spirit of a galley slave. Oh, it's no use pretending. It's got to come out. It's here," she rushed on, pressing her hands hysterically against her softly rounded bosom. "The dream is past. All dreams are past. I'm awake now—to this," she indicated the room about her, simple almost to bareness in its furnishing, with a gesture of indescribable feeling. "It's all I've got to waken to. All I've got to look forward to. I've tried to tell myself there's a good time coming, when I can peer into the great light world, and snatch something of the joy of it all. I've tried, I've tried. But there isn't. It's the cold drear of this northland. It's chores from daylight to dark, and all the best years of life hurrying behind me as if they were yearning to make me old before I can get a chance to—live. I'm sick thinking. Show me. What is there? You're an Inspector, and we get a thousand dollars a year, and the rations we draw from the Indian Agency. You'll never get a Superintendent. You've no political pull, shut off up here well nigh in sight of the Arctic ice. I'm twenty-two with years and years of it before me, and all the time I'll need to go on counting up my cents how I can get through till next pay-day comes around. Don't talk to me of your wife."
